Writing for Fun
February 2017
Another World - Paul Burridge
Quantum theory is massively strong. In fact it is the only theory which has never been disproved. And it may seem like BBC2 style academic onanism, but it has solid practical applications. Our modern, electronic age would be impossible without it.
By comparison, Newtonian physics (the physics by which we lead our everyday lives – drop a brick on your foot and it hurts, that sort of thing) has more holes than a Swiss cheese.
Trouble is that Quantum theory shouldn’t really work.
On the very smallest scale that we can currently detect, things don’t behave the way they should – for instance an object can commonly be in two places at the same time. Einstein (and his colleagues Podolsky and Rosen) back in the ‘20s identified the problem – termed the EPR Paradox – but they couldn’t supply a solution. And many others have had a crack at reconciling quantum mechanics with the reality by which we lead our everyday lives.
One of the planks (pun intended) of quantum theory is that the observer influences the outcome. Erwin Schrödinger (in his now famous feline thought experiment) decided that before we observe the outcome of an event the participants exist in some sort of fuzzy, neither-this-nor-that state. It is difficult not to admire the elegance of Schrödinger’s experiment but it never made much sense to me.
And back in the ‘50s it didn’t work for Hugh Everett III either. His solution (now pretty much universally accepted) was simple. Schrödinger’s cat didn’t die, or live, nor did it exist in some sort of fuzzy state of unrealised potential. No, there’s no fudging, no fuzzy state. The simple solution to the Schrödinger’s cat experiment (according to Everett) is that the cat both lived and died.
This has been termed the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI).
Crudely it goes something like this: when we are faced with a choice, left or right, up or down, buy or sell, kill or cure, fish and chips or king prawn vindaloo, the universe divides based on our choice. In one universe it’s all left, up, buy, kill, fish and chips and in the other universe it’s all right, down, sell, cure, king prawn vindaloo. As you can imagine the title ‘Many Worlds’ is a massive understatement. In fact Everett’s theory posits an infinite number of universes.
Everett, a morose, obese, alcoholic, chain smoker died at the age of fifty one. But not before having broken the scientific log jam that had confounded the greatest minds of the century. His last wishes were to be cremated and for his remains to be left out with the trash. I understand that his long suffering wife cheerfully complied.
A sad and poignant note: Everett’s daughter later committed suicide. She left a note requesting for her ashes also to be left out with the trash – ‘so that she may enter the same parallel universe as Daddy.’
If Quantum mechanics holds true, and you had better pray that it does (or our world as we know it will collapse) somewhere in the Multiverse there is another world where Hitler was proud to honour his Jewish heritage; another world where the Spanish Armada succeeded and, maybe, we all speak Spanish; another world where the Arch Duke Ferdinand survived the assignation attempt in Sarajevo and seventeen million men didn’t die in the first world war; another world where the lookout on the Titanic had been issued with binoculars; another world where Harold’s shield wall had held at Hastings; another world where Khrushchev didn’t back down from Kennedy over Cuba and triggered nuclear Armageddon; another world where Mark Chapman didn’t shoot John Lennon; another world where Marilyn Monroe didn’t take an overdose; another world where Charles hadn’t cheated on Diana and another world where Donald Trump hadn’t woken up one bright morning and thought it would be a really brilliant idea to be President.
Our world is not the only world, it’s not the best world; I doubt that it’s the worst.
It is just Another World.